


The Subject of Stars

by FearNoEvil



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Cameos by Gavroche Bossuet Musichetta and Bahorel, Character Study, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Nonsense, Suspense, Waxing Poetic About Stars, please don't take this too seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27505381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FearNoEvil/pseuds/FearNoEvil
Summary: The one where Javert might have noticed all the treason going on if he hadn’t been so distracted by this oddball kid talking about stars.
Relationships: Javert & Jean "Jehan" Prouvaire
Comments: 14
Kudos: 12





	The Subject of Stars

“Alright, is everything clear?” Enjolras asked.

“Perfectly,” Joly replied, smiling up at him. They were crowded under the awning of the Café Musain as the rain poured down: Joly, comfortably installed alone at one of the outdoor tables, wrapped warmly, a steaming cup of coffee in front of him, a large case of books and pens and papers by his side, back to the wall, face to the street; Enjolras, on his feet, coat buttoned, facing Joly’s table, with an unsettled air of movement and purpose. Making sure of Joly was just the first item on a long list of things to prepare and gather today, and he was already behind his self-imposed schedule.

“Then say it back to me, one more time,” Enjolras commanded. At Joly’s incredulous expression, he added, “I just want to be sure. Your head could be muddled from your cold! And a misunderstanding, at this juncture, could spell disaster!”

Joly looked momentarily nervous, but his mouth quirked in amusement. “I ab to waid here to receibe shipbents of guns, abunitions add udder biscellaneous supplies from our supporters agross Paris. When they arribe, I’ll show or tell theb where to store – ahh –” he broke off to sneeze into his handkerchief. “Sorry – where to store id idside. By list will tell me who do expect, wid what – so I gan check obb nabes as I go . . .”

“Good,” Enjolras nodded, not quite smiling. “Just remember, roads and people are unpredictable, so we don’t know exactly when each shipment should arrive. I’ve told everyone that if there was a problem on their end, they can report it to you here. I _should_ be the last back, so you can refer to your list to let me know if anything’s gone wrong or missing, or if there were any issues with the law, so we can sort it out. Alright?”

“Udderstood,” Joly returned with a bob of his head that was halfway between a nod and a bow. “I ged to sid id one place all day, jusd drying nod to ged bored, while you all run off agross Paris id the raid!”

“All for the cause,” Enjolras insisted. “Protect your precarious health _now_ , and you might be well again for the day of revolution! Just rationing our resources!”

Joly laughed a little, and nodded his understanding again, which was Enjolras’s cue to bang his hand on the table and say, “Right! I’ll be off, then! See you tonight!” And he turned to go without another word.

“Enjolras! Waid!” Joly’s voice recalled him urgently.

His umbrella half-extended, and one step outside the awning’s protection, Enjolras turned back only with a look of impatience, and found Joly proffering to him a colorful knitted scarf – one of Musichetta’s creations.

“Stay warb oud there,” Joly told him.

Enjolras’s expression softened into a smile. He took the scarf from Joly’s hand and wrapped it around his neck. In Joly’s opinion, it wasn’t really his style, and didn’t really go with his ensemble, but needs must on cold, wet days, and – well, _everything_ looked good on Enjolras. 

“Thank you; I will,” Enjolras returned kindly, and after briefly pressing Joly’s hand, he spun around and sped off into the torrential streets with all the soaring grace of a furious bird of prey.

* * *

As soldiers march, as drunken men stagger, as Parisians saunter, Inspector Javert, on the evening of that same day, prowled through the Latin Quarter on high alert. Little as he had ever seen eye-to-eye with his colleagues in the precinct, their slapdash attitude to this coming revolution was especially perplexing. Did they not mind the streets in chaos and disarray, just as they had been less than two years ago? Did they forget so quickly, the bloodshed, the confusion, the torn apart pavement, the ruined buildings, the corruption and rebellion that had taken possession of so many minds and souls? The other officers thought, perhaps, that it was inevitable, that there was little to be done before it started in earnest, that they might as well rest now in preparation for that great conflagration – but Javert would not submit to that. He had concocted a plan to try and cripple the revolution before General Lamarque’s funeral began.

His plan was a simple one: he would do one sweep through some well-known radical neighborhoods in his police uniform, and then another in plainclothes – and he would observe what was different. As virtue did not fear authority, anyone who acted differently in front of a police agent than in front of a civilian was to be cast under suspicion. If he could gather good information tonight, there could be arrests and detainments as soon as tomorrow morning, and then, with their numbers reduced, their leadership scattered or imprisoned, the revolution would flounder in weakness and confusion and fall easily to the might of the law. And hopefully then, whatever remained of those firebrand schoolboys would be too scared and disorganized to try anything again. They would be forced to submit.

He had seen nothing whatever very suspicious so far; indeed, people tipped their hats at him (if somewhat nervously) when he passed, and he didn’t want to seem too zealous at the start of his hunt, or he might drive all the wild wolves back into their dens before he had seen anything. As he passed onto the Rue Saint-Michel, the street was largely deserted, save for one café on the corner. It was the Café Musain, according to the sign, and in front of it, one slight, curly-haired young man sat alone at an outdoor table, his coffee getting cold, engaged in reading from an enormous book. As Javert approached, he could just make out the title; it was a medical text – thus, he was a medical student. And periodically, he turned and coughed into his handkerchief – thus, a sick medical student.

As Javert prowled in his direction, he passed by a certain alleyway and paused when he heard voices.

“— told me to bring him something nice, he’d make it worth my while –” a child’s voice was saying.

“That should do very well, then!” laughed another voice, a rather soft and musical voice, coming from somewhere higher – an open window on the side of the building, perhaps.

Javert glanced curiously down the alley – an alleyway was, after all, a veritable cesspool of vice and crime, always in shadow from the knowing eyes of the law – when the child in question came spilling swiftly out into the street. He was a ragged-looking boy, no more than twelve at most, and in his arms, he clung securely to a large, yowling, grubby white cat with black spots. The boy looked at him in his uniform and did not nod or smile or tip his hat; instead he shot him a look that could only be described as ‘defiance’ before dashing off, cat and all, in the direction of the corner café.

“ _Oh_ ,” said a surprised voice suddenly – and it was that same gentle, musical voice, but now it issued from almost directly above him. Javert looked up in confusion and gave a start; the shadowed figure of the speaker stood on the very edge of the roof of that building! For a horrible moment, Javert was seized by the apprehension that whoever it was meant to jump. But they were merely standing serenely on the brink, unconcerned about the sheer drop that stood before them. Now, that wasn’t illegal, and Javert was no hypocrite – he’d stood on the odd precipice himself, overlooking the city – but it was still a horribly dangerous position, and no king’s subject was going to plummet to their death on his watch!

“Good evening, Inspector!” the speaker greeted him, waving down at him from on high.

After a moment of straining his eyes in the light of the moon and a street-lamp, he could determine that the speaker was a young man – but what he was wearing . . . Was that a _cape_? _Feathers_ in his cap? He looked like some sort of Medieval pageboy who had leapt off an illustration in a book of history. There was even a sword on his belt. Javert could only surmise that he was a theatre actor who had gotten drunk and forgotten to take off his costume before he left. And if that were the case, it made his position all the more precarious.

“What are you doing up there?” Javert asked at length.

“Oh, stargazing!” the young man replied. He tilted his head to consider, and then added, “Do you care to join me, Inspector?”

Javert considered. Joining him up there was probably his best shot of getting him to safety, if he was in any way imperiled, and if not – he seemed friendly enough that he might let drop any amount of useful intelligence about his less-celestial observations if Javert could gain his trust. And the rooftop must provide a good sweeping view of the street below. “I shall come up,” Javert declared, indicating the staircase in the alleyway, “if you don’t mind?”

“Oh, you’re _very_ welcome! The stars _like_ good company!”

Javert made no reply, and with a nod, hastened to climb the stairs on the side of the building until he reached the high rooftop. The building – some sort of shop, it seemed, closed and shuttered for the night – towered above its neighbor across the alley, such that Javert was slightly winded when he finally reached the rooftop. The young man awaited him, and offered him a friendly hand up the last few steps.

As he caught his breath, Javert examined the young man now in closer proximity. He did not seem the least bit heated by wine or spirits; his air was remarkably serene. He had longish, flowing, wavy hair hanging wild and loose a little past his shoulders, in some fair shade that was hard to determine in this lighting. His face was youthful and soft-featured, and he wore a crooked, slightly embarrassed smile that was thoughtful and ingenuous. While Javert had often been told – not at all to his dissatisfaction – that his own countenance filled people with terror, he didn’t think he had ever seen anyone who looked more inherently harmless than this young man.

“You thought, perhaps, I’d fallen from the moon, Inspector?” he laughed merrily, handing him a canteen of water. “Alas, no – at this epoch, at least, the terrestrial man is obliged always to climb toward the light!”

Javert had certainly been thinking no such thing, but he smiled vaguely at the young man’s strangeness as he examined his new surroundings.

The young man had made himself quite a cozy little nest here on the roof of this shop, so much so that it seemed he must have made some arrangement with the shopkeepers to occupy it. Large potted, flowering plants surrounded them on almost all sides, and he had a blanket laid out with a number of pillows set out upon it. Close by several candles were blazing and flickering away, casting their light on a small stack of books and what looked to be a golden sailor’s spyglass. Another book lay spread open, a pen lying across it, one of its pages blank save a tiny doodle of a tree, the other half-covered with elegant handwriting – confined to the middle of the page like verse – with flowing sketches of flowers in the margins on either side. Further off lay a leather sack that was mostly empty – presumably where all this had come from – and lastly, leaning against one of the pillows was a strange, shining object braced with strings, like a small, misshapen harp.

“It’s a lyre!” the young man informed him brightly, having evidently been following his gaze. “The legendary instrument of Orpheus, who could move the heart of the Lord of Death with but his voice and verses! The symbol of all poets! Though I’m – not very good at it yet,” he added, blushing a little. “Much better at flute!”

Javert could only nod as he gazed again on this odd bohemian fellow. A thought had leapt unbidden into his mind of one of his mother’s strange stories – of the fey creatures that roamed the wild places of the world, stealing children and replacing them with their own – how those children spent their lives trying to pass themselves off as human. But his mother’s stories were nonsense, Javert reminded himself sternly. Reality had rules – _laws_ – and this young man was simply an adherent of one of those odd artistic fashions of the day – a Romantic or an _avant-garde_ or whatever they called themselves.

The young man, smiling, handed Javert his spyglass. He accepted it with a nod of thanks and, reminding himself why he was there, approached the edge of the roof where he’d seen the young man standing originally. He looked through the glass down at the street, but still it was deserted, save for the sick medical student sitting outside the café. The same black-and-white cat was now rubbing against his legs – the boy from the alley had evidently brought it to him – while he reached down to scratch its ears and cheeks. Through the magnified lens, he could see the young student’s laughing, delighted expression before it was lost in another sneeze. The ragged boy from the alley then emerged from the café, munching on some pastry, and he waved to the sick medical student and received a fond pat on the head before dashing off into the night.

“Inspector?” the young man behind him said timidly. Javert lowered the spyglass to look back at him. “That’s for – for the stars, you know! Not that – oh, _not_ that watching the people isn’t fascinating too, sometimes, but –”

“Yes, indeed,” Javert interrupted, offering the boy a smile and obligingly turning the spyglass heavenward, and observed, slightly magnified, the stars in their multitudes. It was indeed an ideal night for stargazing; the afternoon’s rainclouds had long-since cleared and the moon was large and luminous. He then shifted the end of the lens until he found what he was looking for.

  
“Polaris,” the young man noted, smiling. “You knew _just_ where to look! Are you a friend of the stars, Inspector?”

“A _friend_ —?”

“The stars used to be among my _only_ friends,” the young man told him earnestly, the smile remaining, but turning slightly sad. 

Javert felt an odd prickle of – something very close to empathy for the young man. He wondered, in a distant corner of his mind – a forbidden place where his mother’s stories were meant to stay locked – if he had really come to this rooftop to gather intelligence or protect a subject in danger, or if it was merely out of love for the stars, or the draw of this bright human spirit that seemed, somehow, to see into his soul. “How do you mean?” he asked after a pause.

“Well, I had no brothers or sisters,” the young man informed him, “and I schooled at home – at the family estate, far from town! So I saw other children but rarely, and – even then . . .” He gave a soft sigh. “Even then, I – I didn’t know how to talk to them. I was scared of them, mostly. And they had no time for a – a timid little thing like me! I was left alone. So I’d cheer myself up by walking through the gardens, making friends with all the flowers! Or burying myself in my father’s library, finding friends in books! And even after the garden was darkened and all the reading-lamps had been extinguished, still – I could look to the heavens – and find friends among the stars!”

Javert was again at a loss for words, and couldn’t decide if this strange boy was a kindred spirit or a complete nonsensical enigma. He, too, had looked to the stars as his only guiding light in lonely world – he ached that shared understanding. But on the other hand, he could never fathom being friends with a flower or a book, or the sort of childhood this confession implied (schooled at the _family estate_?), or that young man had just _told_ him all of this – borne his soul to him – with but minimal prompting.

Above all, Javert could not fathom that. For practically all his life, he had stood cold and aloof from all human sympathy, confiding his soul and his past to none but the bright, steady stars – save but once. Once, when he’d lost patience with all the excuses of an escaped convict, he’d let slip his shameful origin. What was the irony that _Jean Valjean –_ Prisoner 24601, he reminded himself sternly – knew more about him than any other living soul!

The young man had obviously read his expression as some sort of shocked sympathy, for he added, “It’s alright, really, Inspector! I do have human friends _now_! So many _wonderful_ friends! Now when I look at the sky –” his gaze climbed heavenward again – “I can see each of _them_ in different stars – Polaris, Acturus, even the sun!”

“Wouldn’t there be – some competition on which of them is the sun?” Javert wondered aloud.

“Oh no,” the young man shook his head. “Everyone knows and agrees on which one of them is the sun! As for you, Inspector, if I were to assign _you_ a star, I’d say you have an air that brings to mind – Sirius, the Dog-Star!” Suddenly his face reddened and his eyes widened with panic. “N-not that I’m calling you a _dog_ , Inspector!”

Javert almost smiled at how quickly his manner transitioned between dreamy and mortified and back again. “What’s your name?” he asked.

He seemed to hesitated for a half-second before he replied, simply, “Jean.”

Javert scowled at the association of the name – once more the unwelcome thought of Jean Valjean. But to dislike and distrust everyone named ‘Jean’ was practically to mistrust the human race! Or at least a good portion of the French populace. Javert didn’t think he’d even known a Jean he liked before, but then – what percentage of people he knew were criminals? What percentage of people he had _ever_ met had he really liked? The young man – Jean – had made no mention of a surname. That, along with his reference to a family estate made him wonder if the family name was something he would recognize from the gazettes – either through fame or infamy. The reverence for the great possessed him tentatively, at war with the abhorrence for the criminal. But which one was he? Or was he either? Was he just odd and naïve enough that he genuinely thought a first name answered his question?

Javert had turned subtly to glance out at the street again, and now movement attracted his attention. A tall, strong, bald man in a threadbare coat was striding quickly toward the café at the corner, carrying with him a large guitar case. The instrument inside must have been heavier than average, for, strong as he was, he slightly strained to carry it along. When he neared the end of the street, he hailed the sick medical student (who had been holding the cat in his arms, nose to its nose), and he immediately looked up, setting the cat down, and greeted him heartily.

“We have – erm, _concerts_ there, sometimes!” Jean informed him, following his eyes again and coming up behind him, sounding oddly nervous again. “One – coming up very soon!”

“Hence the lyre?” Javert asked him.

“Oh! Yes!” Jean laughed, almost fretfully. “Yes, of course, I’m just – I’m just a little nervous to perform on a new instrument! I could just play the flute again, but – well, I’ve been writing a lot of new verses, and –”

“Hard to sing and play the flute at the same time,” Javert nodded.

“Exactly!” Jean agreed, with a wide smile. The bald fellow and the sick medical student, who after their enthusiastic greeting had briefly entered the café together, now emerged, free of the guitar case but now carrying fresh rolls and steaming cups, and sat down together at the table. Both were laughing heartily at something. He laughed a lot, that medical student. 

“But how rude of me!” Jean added suddenly, excessively embarrassed again. “I’ve been prattling on about _myself_ , Inspector, and know _nothing_ of you! Not even your name!”

“Javert,” said Javert evasively, after a short pause of his own.

“And you’re an Inspector! I say, it must be – difficult and confusing to try and uphold the law in these strange times!”

Javert frowned quickly and looked back into Jean’s face. “What do you mean by that?”

“W-well only – well, you know, your boss – the government authority – keeps changing, doesn’t it? Changing day by day, it seems! If you’ve been at _all_ long in the service – and you do strike me so – then you work for the man who usurped your last boss! And now – well, you’re hoping to keep him in power, to – to maintain order, I suppose. But if _he_ was overthrown, as – erm, _some_ people are hoping, I hear – would you work for his conqueror? I confess, I could not do it, Inspector – not unless I had plunged into the River Lethe to forget all I had stood for before!”

“It is simple matter to one of properly balanced mind,” Javert returned, almost defiantly. “It is not such a change as you imagine. My duty does not change.”

“No? Not even as the aim of the governing authority changes?”

“My duty is to the law,” Javert dismissed, “no matter whose. The law is above all men and divinely bestowed. It was given by God.”

“But it was the _law_ that put Christ to death!” Jean protested.

“As part of His plan,” Javert returned. “It served its purpose.”

“A _corrupt_ –” Jean began, but stopped himself, perhaps remembering who he was talking to, and changed his course. “I – I do think _that_ law, at least, was corrupt, Inspector. To my mind – God, the divine and its will for us, here below – is best understood – well, in _love_ , Inspector! Love for our neighbors – the internal science of the conscience – is our gift from the divine! The truest law is simply to treat each other with love, treat every man as our brother, to act – to _strive_ – for the good of our fellow-man! That, in short, the essence of God is love!”

Javert almost snorted. “God is a judge,” he said. “What we must _strive_ for is to stay upright and righteous – on the right side of His law!”

Jean regarded him now with a sort of excruciating pity. “It must be,” he began, after a pause, “if not _confusing_ , then certainly _disheartening_ for you – to see so much of the worst of people! To see little of your fellow-man besides his worst crimes! My father says he remembers – during the chaos after the Revolution of ’89 – he’d gone to Paris on business – and he chanced to see General Lafayette in the street! They’d made him the captain of the National Guard, and he was trying _so hard_ to quell all the rioting, riding up and down the streets all day to stop more murders – and Father says . . . he just looked so _tired_. He had never imagined, perhaps, that his countrymen could turn so savagely violent!”

“Every man is a savage within; it takes law restrain him!” Javert persisted hotly. “And that sort of chaos is what’s in store for us again, if those firebrand schoolboys have their way!”

This seemed to rattle the boy a bit. He did seem a timid soul; perhaps the promised chaos frightened him. “If they – h-had their way in _all_ things –” he began.

“They _won’t_ ,” Javert assured him. “They’ll barely have a chance to mewl out their demands! No fear, young man – the police and the National Guard will be ready for them!”

Jean did not look very reassured; he gave a haunted-looking smile. “Perhaps – they’d also prefer – a – a more peaceful –”

“They want nothing but trouble!” Javert insisted. “You mark my words – it won’t be _peaceful_ but it will be over quickly!”

Jean sighed mournfully, his gaze drifting heavenward before settling back on Javert’s. “Perhaps,” he said, a tiny note of his wistful hope returning, “perhaps the stars can tell us _those_ answers, too, Inspector! Perhaps we may – as the fortune-tellers do – read in the stars how this all will turn out!”

Javert’s scowl darkened further as he coldly snapped off yet another invasion from that distant forbidden sector of his mind. “Fortune-telling is all nonsense,” he said flatly.

Jean sighed again and looked miserably away from him.

Javert also turned away with a sigh to look at the street again. A very short young woman was now approaching the café. She had dark eyes and very curly dark hair strewn with a sort of bright sash, a rose-patterned shawl on her shoulders and, in general, more colors than seemed to fit on her tiny frame. She, too, greeted this apparently very sociable medical student, who waved back excitedly. The moment she was close enough, she seated herself not on any chair, but upon one of his knees, and promptly set to covering him in kisses. The young man hesitated perhaps two seconds before responding enthusiastically in kind. The bald friend, still sipping his drink at the same table, didn’t seem the least perturbed by this, and made no motion to move.

Javert scowled again and uncomfortably averted his eyes from this flagrant display. He supposed that, too, wasn’t really _illegal_ – just decidedly unseemly! He looked again upon Jean, whose eyes had also alighted on this brazen tryst – but it apparently made _him_ smile.

“Is there anything more beautiful to behold than the ecstasies of love?” he asked dreamily. He held out an arm to the heavens in dramatic recitation. “‘ _Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art – Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night –_ ’ erm, how does it go? Forgive me, my English is – Oh yes! _And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite –_ ”

“I like it,” Javert told him, thoughtfully and sincerely. He’d never read much at all of poetry before, but this was a verse he could thoroughly understand.

“ _‘— the moving waters at their priestlike task –’_ Oh, thank you! It _is_ a love poem, after a fashion; it just takes a while to get there!” Jean grinned, with another touch of a satisfied blush. Javert was pleased that the boy seemed to have taken no permanent offense after his last comment, and was once more smiling innocently on him.

“One of yours?” Javert asked.

“Oh, _no_! No, not at all! That – that _sort_ of love is – is still a wonderfully _mysterious_ subject to me! I've done my best, but for this - I can really only – go by what the experts say!”

Javert nodded in a way to indicate that he shared the notion – though in his case, _love_ was one mystery the police inspector didn’t have any particular inclination to solve.

“ _This_ poem was by a Mr. Keats – an English poet,” Jean went on. “A _John_ , like me! Though he used the English spelling – J-O-H-N. He died in Italy, back in 1821, when he was only twenty-five! Consumption, they think.” 

Javert nodded politely, which was enough encouragement for Jean to heave a tragic sigh, and be thoroughly carried away by his subject. “Oh, it was a _terribly_ sad story, Inspector! You see, though his soul had always longed to be a poet, he’d been a medical student when he was younger, so _he_ knew better than anyone what was happening to him! He knew he was dying! And I think sometimes that sort of knowledge,” he added, casting a strangely compassionate glance back down toward the café where, presumably, the sick medical student and his colorful lady were still entwined, “can be as much a curse as a blessing to us! _Because_ he knew what he knew, he gave up hope! His friends insisted he could get better in the warmer climes of Italy, but he never believed it! He went along, but he had to leave behind the lady he loved, and he called all that time after she was gone from his sight his ‘posthumous existence!’ What _despair_ for that poor fellow! A friend went with him, of course – Mr. Severn; _he_ was a painter! He wasn’t even his _best_ friend – in fact, they were really just acquaintances when they left – but Severn admired him so much – that though it grieved him to watch Keats’s decline, he stayed by his side – t-to the very end!”

Jean was apparently so moved by this story – of an Englishman who died eleven years ago – that tears swam in his eyes. Javert stared in perplexity, his impression slipping once again from a sort of empathic understanding back to the blank confusion of someone speaking a foreign language, when suddenly another expression clouded over the boy’s face – a look of pure, unadulterated terror.

* * *

The reason was this: Javert now had his back to the street to face Jehan and his impassioned rant, while Jehan’s eyes were still vaguely directed toward it. Bahorel had sauntered around the corner and into sight, heading also for the café, and struggling with two more instrument cases – one another guitar case, one for a something enormous like a tuba. Bahorel was almost undoubtedly the strongest man in their company, but still he visibly strained in hauling them both. Bossuet, noticing his distress from the café table (while Joly and Musichetta were still very occupied) had hastened off into the street to help him. But no sooner had Bossuet taken the guitar case off Bahorel’s grateful hands than one of its fasteners came undone, and immediately all its contents came spilling, clattering out into the open street. And its contents were, naturally, a number of unloaded rifles and pistols.

For a moment, Jehan’s heart flooded with nothing but blind panic. His hand, undecided, almost reached madly for the sword on his belt – in case it came down to trying to physically overpower this tall, imposing, armed police inspector. Javert was looking at him in confusion and, getting no verbal explanation, began to turn to see if the cause of his alarm was something behind him.

“Inspector!” Jehan exclaimed, suddenly grasping him by the hands, alarming him into looking back at his face instead of the pile of illegal firearms his friends were smuggling into their headquarters. He’d been prattling his usual airy nothings at this inspector for maybe half an hour, and it had now, suddenly, become one of the most gravely important conversations of his life – perhaps even a matter of life and death, for him to be able to act natural and hold the Inspector’s attention.

“What?” the Inspector asked. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Right, thought Jehan: first, he had to have some explanation for why he’d suddenly very noticeably panicked. “Inspector, do you ever – do you ever suddenly remember something that you did ages ago, and – and you just get so embarrassed about it all over again that you want to crawl into a hole?”

The Inspector looked half-relieved, and a bit thoughtful. As Jehan wondered what embarrassing memory such a fellow could be thinking of, he chanced half a glance down at the street again, and saw Musichetta, Joly, Bossuet and Bahorel all kneeling down to gather up the fallen guns, Musichetta scooping the smaller pistols onto her spread-out skirt. They needed more time. 

What was the Inspector interested to talk about? Stars, clearly, were the theme of the night, so as he wracked his brain for embarrassing memories, he hit upon one that fit in nicely in with this theme. “M-my memory – what _I_ just thought of, Inspector, that was so mortifying!” he went on, clasping Javert’s hands firmly. “It was – it was when I was child – about seven or eight, I think! And I’d just been talking with someone – a cousin, I think – telling him about – I don’t remember what! Going on about it, no doubt, in that heedless way I have – and he rather lost patience with me. He told me, ‘Jean, this is why you have no friends! Why can’t you act like a normal person for five minutes?’ Well, that struck me as much as it pained me, Inspector! What if I was _not_ a person like him? What if I were ‘no man of woman born!’ What if I were not a person at all – not of this earth! So I told my cousin that _was_ the reason – that I had fallen to earth from the stars!”

Javert’s eyes seemed to soften slightly. “A nobler nativity than many of us get,” he said softly and mysteriously.

“Yes! I thought it the grandest idea! But you see, it made my mother _cry_ , that I had claimed – one of the Pleiades as my mother! In so doing, it had seemed I’d denied _her_ as my mother! When I had _really_ never thought of such a thing! But Mother’s tears haunted me, so that even now, I can never _think_ of that day without a blush!”

And indeed Jehan was blushing again, remembering with shame. But it would be a small price to pay if he kept the Inspector’s attention on him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Joly with an armful of rifles, Musichetta with a skirtful of pistols, Bossuet cradling the broken guitar case, and Bahorel swinging the larger case, shuffling awkwardly and congregating on the café door. “Oh, I do _so_ wish we could see those Seven Sisters tonight!” he went on, casting his glance heavenward again. “But they’re out of season now in the warmer months!”

“They’ll return in their season,” Javert assured him, following his gaze. “The stars don’t stray from their course. We may all – we may all take that lesson from the stars!”

Jehan beamed. “Yes, and in the meantime,” he added cheerfully, gesturing wildly skyward and being heartily relieved when Javert raised the spyglass to look again, “what lovely summer constellations! Stars and flowers – it seems _all_ the greatest beauties come and go in their seasons!”

Jehan perceived a tiny smile tug at the Inspector’s face as he shifted the lens of the spyglass into another shimmering quadrant of sky. He chanced one more glance back at the Musain. Everyone and their guns had vanished inside, and Jehan heaved a sigh of relief. “And – and isn’t it wonderful, Inspector,” he went on, “that each soul can look up the stars – and seem to read a different message in them? Steadiness, or love, or hope, or the future . . .”

Javert lowered his spyglass curiously to look back at Jehan.

“Perhaps,” Jehan went on, “perhaps the true magic of the stars is to be – like the Knight of the Mirrors – to show us our true selves! To reflect back into our own eyes – our true ideal – the very essence of our souls!”

Javert remained silent, looking at him with a stunned expression.

“And how heartening, then, to think – that mankind has always looked to the stars and seen _heroes_ there, reflected back at them – Orion and Hercules and all the rest! The ideal of so many people – in the depths of their soul – to be a hero!”

He turned back to Inspector Javert, clasped him by the shoulder, and led him once more to the edge of the rooftop, where they could clearly see that Joly was again installed peacefully at his table, that Bossuet had Musichetta, arm in arm, were waving at him and departing down one street, Bahorel down the other.

“Inspector Javert,” Jehan said in a much different voice than before, which was firm and almost commanding with a sort of fierce pride, “if you came here, duty-bound, to seek vice and evil – you may as well move on, for you will not find them in this quarter! Not among _my_ friends!”

Javert smiled, and Jehan dared to hope that he believed him, believed in his conviction of the truth of his words. His voice and expression softened again, as he added, “But if you only to seek _beauty_ , Inspector – then please stay as long as you like! I’ll play you a song on the lyre!”

Javert almost looked half-tempted, but he shook his gravely. “No,” he said, “I should be moving on. I have my duty. Here,” he added, holding out the spyglass.

But Jehan pushed it back and closed his fingers around it. “Keep it,” he said, “for when you’re lonely, Inspector! Keep it to call upon your friends!”

Javert looked down, nodded, and tucked the spyglass into his pocket. Then he briefly clasped Jehan’s hand, and disappeared down the stairs into the alley.

Jehan lingered on the rooftop a while longer, as he gathered his things back into his bag; he suddenly felt a strange chill. He watched, in the light of the streetlamps below, as Javert passed by the café and tipped his hat to Joly. The intense, nervous start the Joly gave in greeting him back recalled him violently, for not the first time that night, to fact that that man was his natural enemy; that it was characters like him that endangered their revolution. He’d felt pity and even camaraderie for the lonely inspector; he had read a great deal of conflict in his expressive face, but no matter what sparks of friendship they might have exchanged, it would not stop him and his colleagues from putting them all down like dogs without a second thought. One of those very guns they’d just concealed could be used, justly, in just a few days’ time, to _kill_ that Inspector.

He shivered a little, and when he again gazed at the stars, he read and felt nothing from them but a cold and eerie premonition that his own fate was inextricably bound up with that of Inspector Javert. Another verse of Keats drifted subconsciously to his lips:

_“When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,_

_Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,_

_And think that I may never live to trace_

_Their shadows with the magic hand of chance –”_

But another sudden movement interrupted this melancholy recitation and caused him to look down. It was Enjolras, returning from his long day of errands. He wearily greeted Joly and took off a lovely many-colored scarf he was wearing to wrap it around Joly’s neck before trying to sit down beside him, finding the curled in the chair, and promptly stealing a chair from another table to join him.

Jehan smiled, slung his bag over his shoulder and, dismissing the cold augury of the stars, climbed down to go and warm himself at their table.

* * *

Javert had been shaken by the strange boy on the rooftop; he would not deny that. What was it about that boy that made it seem possible to be a child of the heavens rather than a child of the gutter? He’d made Javert remember his mother repeatedly, and think of Jean Valjean at least thrice! (His mortifying memory was of the time he had mistakenly _apologized_ to Jean Valjean during the wretched Champmathieu affair.) And what strange ideas he had about God and law!

Javert would have been on the verge of suspecting him for that, but it was just too absurd. If he’d been up to no good, a boy that timid would _never_ have deliberately attracted the attention of an intimidating police inspector. But innocence did not fear authority – thus, the boy was merely a strange, naïve innocent.

He had sufficiently overcome all perplexity the boy had awakened with that word – innocent. Was it not good to remember that which the law protected? The innocents who obeyed the law? Not only the great men, but the lyre-playing stargazers of the nation? All were endangered by the violence of revolution; all were reasons to crush it swiftly.

In prowling around in a circular pattern within the largely deserted Latin Quarter – and actually gaining some useful intelligence on other streets, Javert had chanced to double back and find himself again nearing the Rue Saint-Michel. It was getting late, and he was beginning to think it better to resume his search in the light of day; even traitors to the crown would probably be asleep soon. 

But before he turned from the end of the street, he could not help drawing the gifted spyglass from his pocket to check, one more time, on the entrance of the Café Musain.

The sick medical student was still there. (Did this café _ever_ close? Or did the students of the Latin Quarter require access to coffee at all hours?) He was, once again, laughing heartily at something, and was now wrapped in the blanket that Javert had seen on the rooftop. Sitting beside him was his little friend Jean the stargazer, also giggling softly into his hand, and cradling the black-and-white cat in his arms. Lastly, a tall, golden-haired, exceptionally fine-featured young man who looked no older than eighteen sat on the far left, and smiled the sort of smile that held back a laugh.

Javert wondered anxiously if they even knew what was coming. And he hoped to God that those merry, innocent boys would be safe from the carnage of revolution.

**Author's Note:**

> You know you’ve been reading the Brick a lot when the phrase “at this epoch” shows up in your dialogue! This whole story was conceived as a sort of comedic scene, but the jury’s out on just what kind of tone it ended up with. I am also very very very nervous about my portrayal of Inspector Javert, so please be nice! 
> 
> If anyone was pondering the question of "If Jehan had had an extended conversation with Javert beforehand, knowing he was a policeman, why didn't he point him out at the barricade?" then let's all just assume that either Jehan just didn’t notice Javert among the crowd, or that Jehan is profoundly face-blind. Jehan also isn't mentioned as knowing any English, (though maybe he’s just one of those guys who keeps on learning new languages and instruments??) nor can I find the date at which John Keats’s poetry was first translated to French, though I know he was not very well-known in his own time. But I love me some starry Romantics, so please, just let me have this! You’re ‘letting me have’ a lot of indulgence in my favorite subjects here, in fact – I got to talk about Keats, Lafayette, Don Quixote, theology, stars – even the “fallen from the moon” thing was a tiny Cyrano de Bergerac nod! :)
> 
> AND "The Subject of Stars" is a phrase used in a very poetic paragraph of David Copperfield! But really, this title doesn't need that explanation; it's just what it is. There was a time (when men were kind) that I considered "Stars" my favorite Les Mis song; thought I can never DEFINITIVELY decide these days, I still think it's very beautiful (even if Javert is spouting terrible theology.) I am . . . very fond of stars, and all their various angles of symbolism, if you couldn't tell. They don't call me "windmilltothestars" on tumblr for nothing! And yes, that is a hint to talk to me, either here in the comments or there! ;)
> 
> Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed! :)


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